Clique em uma foto para ir ao Google Livros
Carregando... Red or Deadde David Peace
Carregando...
Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. It takes a pretty special effort to write such a turgid, bloated, repetitive and boring book about a subject that should be of great interest to a sports fan such as myself. Peace's novel is based on the career of Bill Shankly, the soccer manager who dragged Liverpool from the doldrums of the Second Division to being the power in the game that it is today. Shankly was ambitious, dedicated, determined and a great judge of talent. His attitude is best summed up by his famous quote: 'Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.' There are great moments in this book, such as when Shankly first hears the Liverpool anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone. Some excellent writing too: Bill knew the time of the greatest victory was also the time of the greatest danger.These hours when the seeds were sown, these days when the seeds were planted. The seeds of complacency, the seeds of idleness. Watered with song, drowned with wine. The seeds of defeat. In showers of praise. But these brief moments are drowned in a sea of mundane writing at almost John and Betty level: Bill went to the drawer. Bill opened the drawer. Bill took out the tablecloth. Bill closed the drawer. This precedes about a page and a half describing Bill setting the table. Not only that; Peace recounts this identical scene several times at different points. At one stage, Peace spends about ten pages describing Bill mowing the lawn. Peace describes vast numbers of Liverpool matches following exactly the same bland formulaic prose, always terminated by the unnecessary tautology "Away from home. Away from Anfield" or "At home. At Anfield". There is so much of this bland repetition that it completely crowds out the inherent interest in a story of ambition, achievement, triumph and the bittersweet aftermath of retirement after a glittering career. There is more than 730 pages in this book, and Peace could easily have told this story in half that length. It's massively contemptuous of readers, their time and their patience. I can only conclude that Peace must be an Everton supporter, to have written such an appalling book about a Liverpool legend such as Shankly. I found this book tedious, repetitive and at times sublimely beautiful kinda like soccer or football itself. In 1959 Liverpool were struggling in the Second Division until Bill Shankly and while turnaround wasn't meteoric or 100 percent successful it still profound, Liverpool are current European champions and Bill Shankly is a big reason why. This was the first book I read by David Peace. Pretty much all of his works are on my to-read list for one reason or another, but I figured this would be a good one to start with because its subject matter -- the life and career of Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly -- would probably be less grim than that of the Red Riding quartet, which was the first of his works to attract my attention. Well, that assessment was correct. This is definitely not a grim book, but it requires determination of a different kind to get through. Peace meticulously layers small, repetitive statements to build up a portrait of Shankly that a review in the Independent described as resembling a pointillist painting. For this reason, it might be better for faster readers who can skim; once I got into the rhythm I could spot some of the really repetitive bits, such as the training sessions at Melwood, and skip ahead to the next event. And it did take a bit of time to settle into the rhythm. But once I did, it was almost hypnotic and pulled me right along. The ideal reader of this book, then, is someone who doesn't mind getting stuck in a book for a while, and is familiar with at least the basic rules of soccer. Knowledge of the Byzantine association football system of cups and leagues might also help but is not a prerequisite. The book contains a bibliography at the back that may be of assistance, and of course the Internet can also help. Also, for what it's worth, I found this easier to read in the trade paperback edition (I started out with hardcover and switched to a different copy). More comfortable to hold, and the page dimensions feel smaller. Those who have already read The Damned Utd (or seen the movie) might like this book, but be prepared for the long haul. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:A New York Times Editors' Choice "[T]he stuff of great literature." —The New York Times | "Red or Dead is a winner." —The Washington Post The place where the swinging sixties started – Liverpool, England, birthplace of the Beatles – wasn’t so swinging. Amid industrial blight and a bad economy, the port town’s shipping industry was going bust and there was widespread unemployment, with no assistance from a government tightening its belt. Even the Beatles moved to London. Into these hard times walked Bill Shankly, a former Scottish coal miner who took over the city’s perpetually last-place soccer team. He had a straightforward work ethic and a favorite song – a silly pop song done by a local band, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Soon he would have entire stadiums singing along, tens of thousands of people all dressed in the team color red . . . as Liverpool began to win . . . And soon, too, there was something else those thousands of people would chant as one: Shank-lee, Shank-lee . . . In Red or Dead, the acclaimed writer David Peace tells the stirring story of the real-life working-class hero who lifted the spirits of an entire city in turbulent times. But Red or Dead is more than a fictional biography of a real man, and more than a thrilling novel about sports. It is an epic novel that transcends those categories, until there’s nothing left to call it but – as many of the world’s leading newspapers already have – a masterpiece. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
Current DiscussionsNenhum(a)Capas populares
Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
É você?Torne-se um autor do LibraryThing. |
( )